


Colonel Young

by Fabrisse



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Universe
Genre: Critique, Gen, Meta, Mild Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 15:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5095991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fabrisse/pseuds/Fabrisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Analysis of Colonel Everett Young as a military officer and commander of the Destiny.  It is not complimentary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Colonel Young

**Author's Note:**

> My friend Kris, who currently has no pseud at Ao3, added a paragraph and edited. Neotoma also edited. Any remaining mistakes are my own.

It is rare that I love a television show, but dislike one particular characterization so much that I want to throw things at the screen, but _Stargate Universe_ has achieved that distinction with Colonel Young.

I have nothing against the actor. I’m relatively certain I don’t have anything against the writers or even the Air Force consultants merely the character, but I would like to share my thoughts. 

I studied for a Master’s in International Relations (didn’t pass one question on my comprehensive, so I don’t have the degree) and am a daughter of the military. My father was a Captain when I was born and retired as a full Colonel when I was twenty-one. He was an honorable officer who discussed his decisions, in general terms, with a daughter who was eager to learn.

**_COLONEL YOUNG_.**

**FRATERNIZATION:**  
Colonel Young had an affair with Lieutenant Johansen. ( Anyone reading this who is military has permission to go have a quick shower. I’ll wait.) Any fraternization is bad. It can create issues around favoritism -- whether or not there is any -- can confuse the decision making process for both officers involved, and can have a detrimental impact on the rest of the unit. If it’s flagrant, or even rumored it can also discredit the unit with within the hierarchy or the outside world.

The only positive in the above is that they are both officers. Had she been Sergeant Johansen, the situation would have been far worse. As it is, this could get them both court martialed.

The military recognizes that personal relationships, even intimate ones, can spring up among groups who works closely. There are existing regulations to cope with such a situation beginning with a transfer request for one or, ideally, both of them. This is true even if the hard line between officer and enlisted is crossed providing both people agree there was no coercion involved and the action is taken quickly (in other words, don’t wait until the relationship has gone sour or do it for revenge).

But while the hardest line is between officer and enlisted, the line between junior and senior officers is also important. (For the non-military, in the US system, senior officers, beginning at major, have brass on the bill of their Class A uniform hat, known affectionately as scrambled eggs. The Air Force has silver, so I suppose it’s egg whites.) Had Colonel Young been in a relationship with a major, it would be more acceptable. One or the other should still request a transfer out of the direct line of reporting (on Icarus base this would mean the illusive major would report to Colonel Telford rather than Young). 

There is another aspect of this which is important, too. Young is married. Adultery is “conduct unbecoming” under [Article 134-2 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.](http://usmilitary.about.com/od/punitivearticles/a/mcm1342.htm) If given the maximum punishment, both of them could be discharged from the service, jailed for up to a year, and made to forfeit all pay and allowances. This could mean that Colonel Young gets no retirement pay for over twenty years of military service. The impact on Lieutenant Johansen could be lesser or greater depending upon whether she chooses to remain in the Air Force.

If Johansen initiated the relationship, Young’s “no” should have been so forceful they heard it on Earth. If Young initiated it, with his rank, age, and authority (he appears to be Commandant of Icarus base which gives him more authority than just his rank), then he is a despicable human being as well as a bad officer. This is even more true since the audience sees him trying to maintain a relationship with his wife. 

***  
**DECISIONMAKING**  
Officers make decisions. That is what they are for. From those decisions, orders are given. And every officer makes a bad decision, gives a bad order, from time-to-time. Some decisions need to be made with a wider strategy in mind; others are tactical based on current conditions and information. Each level of rank reflects the greater decisions which can be made; the lower one’s rank, the less leeway a person has in interpreting orders and the fewer decisions required. 

Young is a full colonel. He has had the experience and the training. Chances are he’s been to one of the staff colleges and has either completed or is in the process of completing war college. Both teach officers how to adapt to the differences in command structures as they move up the ranks. His unwillingness to make difficult decisions under pressure is unconscionable.

Lieutenant Scott is effectively second-in-command, a first lieutenant in a job which would usually be filled by a major or even a lieutenant colonel. Scott lacked knowledge about logistics for larger groups of people and, perhaps, awareness of how large the impact of an order can be. Scott’s flaws, including second-guessing himself and other displays of insecurity, are understandable based on his age and rank. Colonel Young’s decision not to provide guidance and information to a very junior officer is reprehensible..

Camille Wray calls Young out on the lottery when they worry about their first intersection with a star. It may sound harsh, but Wray is correct to do so. He should make the decision and take the insults and opprobrium that go with it. While I was disappointed in her for not offering to stay behind, she is not an officer. Young is and should recognize and perform his duty.

This is not the only place where he hesitates in making decisions. Please understand, I’m not saying the Colonel shouldn’t think about his decisions -- he should -- but many decisions need to be made quickly and he’s often unwilling to take the necessary action.

Worst of all, Young allows Dr. Rush to put forward the logical, if often ruthless, course of action and make a show of reluctance about the decision (even if he is reluctant, he shouldn’t let it show. He’s an officer.). 

Every officer will make the wrong decision or give the wrong order at some point. How someone rebounds from a those mistakes is important, and Young fails here, too. He waits too long to vent the Gate Room when the Lucian Alliance comes on board. The decisions he does make endanger the entire Destiny crew, especially those in his direct line of command. As an audience, we never see him attempt to recover from the original bad decision, nor do we see crew or passengers responding to such attempts at recovery. Instead, he keeps compounding the problem without explaining why he’s sticking to that line of reasoning (for the audience and civilians not those in the military hierarchy).

***  
POPULARITY  
Young wants to be liked. As stated above, he uses Rush, and to a lesser extent Wray, as stalking horses for the unpopular decisions. He sets up the already unlikable civilian as the bad guy, the one who voices these unpleasantnesses, rather than accepting the responsibility himself. It doesn’t matter that he may ultimately decide on the unpopular course of action, many will either detest the person who first voiced it or take the reluctance as a sign of Young’s compassion. 

If Young really hasn’t thought of the solutions being voiced, then he lacks the intellect to hold his position. It would be one thing if he asked for everyone’s input and then made a decision. Instead, he asks for input, publicly criticizes the hard decision -- the one that may put lives at risk or otherwise be difficult for the crew -- and then makes his decision with loud reluctance. It doesn’t matter that only five people may be in the room; Park and Brody often discuss how decisions were made with the other civilians. The critique is still public, even if at second hand.

Rush isn’t a saint. Heaven knows he has his own agenda, but he’s willing to make the difficult decisions without apology and in some cases without prior explanation. Certainly after the fight on the alien vessel, he has full knowledge that he’s allowing himself to be used by Young and accepts it as his responsibility. He shouldn’t have to. His personality is enough to put him on the outs with many of the people on board. This extra responsibility would not need to rest on his shoulders if Young would only command.

***  
MENTORING  
As touched on above, Scott is in an invidious position. In one of the DVD extras we see Greer explaining why he shouldn’t apologize or explain an order given. It was this extra which told me that the writers were deliberately making Young a poor officer rather than it being some glitch in civilian understanding of the military.

A sergeant shouldn’t be mentoring a lieutenant, not to that extent. To some degree, Greer needs to do it because Scott came to him and the setting was informal and private. But why does Scott not feel secure enough to ask his commanding officer rather than stumbling through an apology to a senior sergeant?

Colonel Young should be mentoring all three of the junior officers under his command. He should be holding meetings with them to ask about their progress. He should let them ask him to explain his decision making process (note that this is with other officers in private as a teaching exercise). Instead, Scott is left to comfort Young in one episode, is told he must follow orders in another (Scott is not required to follow an illegal or immoral order and the one in question is certainly worth asking about), and then told he should be willing to make decisions without being given any guidance about the overall strategy (mostly in shuttle situations). 

Contrast this to Rush. Eli is mentored, sometimes unwillingly, sometimes indirectly. _Blockade_ is an example of unwilling mentoring. Rush gives Eli the choice of pilot or co-pilot, willing to take either chair. Eli accepts the role of pilot. When Park is trapped, he tries to rescue her, and Rush points out several times that Eli needs to concentrate on the wider problem before finally taking the decision out of his hands. This is mentoring. It’s even good mentoring, though Eli doesn’t see it that way. Maybe three years in stasis will give him time to think it over.

There are no analogous scenes of Young and Scott or Young and James -- Young has no direct individual scenes with James at all. Most scenes with Young and Johansen show her making the decisions she needs to as a medical officer without his input. 

***  
DIVISIVENESS  
In the episode _Light_ , Colonel Young asks Rush if he knew all along that Destiny could survive a trip into the star. Personally, I don’t think Rush had a clue, but I can see why others interpret Rush’s silence differently. Asking the question wasn’t good, but might have been necessary. What was absolutely unnecessary was Young publicly sharing his suspicions with everyone else. 

The crew needs to feel unified to accomplish the main goal of surviving long enough to figure out a way back to Earth. Rush doesn’t make unity easy, but most crew members acknowledge that he’s required to accomplish the mission. Young repeatedly does things to divide the crew -- to the point that the civilians attempt to mutiny -- and often does so by making Rush into the bad guy, or at least the shady fellow, as in the example from _Light_ above.

His most egregious example is deliberately marooning a crew member, Rush, on an alien planet. Even ignoring the fact that Rush is, arguably, the one essential member of the crew, this is despicable and unforgivable behavior for any commanding officer. In some ways, it would be more understandable had it been a deliberate and calculated move on Young’s part. Had Young made a decision that this one pebble in everyone’s shoe was undermining the potential for the crew to work harmoniously and done what was required, it could have been perceived as a necessary sacrifice for the greater good. (In my opinion, it would still have been bone stupid and cruel. And he did maroon most of the Lucian survivors, later in Season 2.) Instead, it’s presented as an impulsive move which, thanks to FTL, can’t be reconsidered.

Young fails to act in a manner consistent with his rank. He declines to follow long-established regulations regarding appropriate conduct by having an affair with a fellow officer, and commits adultery by doing so. He makes decisions by default, or manipulates others into voicing a decision, and then fails to acknowledge responsibility. He fails to acknowledge the inexperience of his junior officers and places the entire ship’s complement at risk by failing to train them in needed skills. He fails to acknowledge the expertise and efforts of others. He actively sets members of the ship’s complement into adversarial relationships rather than harmonious ones. 

He undermines Wray rather than trying to recruit her as an ally. He treats the scientists poorly. He rarely acknowledges the efforts made by others, such as the banana flavoring on the rations. Knowing when to work with others, knowing when to praise, in short, knowing how to lead is something which entirely escapes Young. 

This character is an object lesson, not an example, of military command.


End file.
